


Straight On Till Morning

by nirejseki



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Young Mick, Young Sara, spoilers through 1.14, young Lisa, young len
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 19:44:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6821548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Left alone in the Refuge, Mick and Sara decide they're going to be proactive about their fate.  They end up becoming time pirates.  Because of course they do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Straight On Till Morning

Mick watches the big guy – future him? are we seriously talking _time travel_ here? – stomp away. He’s not sure how he feels about any of this. He’s not sure if this isn’t all a terrible dream – _blast of heat like standing in front of a furnace – smoke filling his lungs – coughing even as you stare – they can’t be gone, right? There’s no screaming, no yelling, though his mind can fill those in from dreams about the first time – something about this feels familiar, like he’s seen it before – but the fire is so beautiful he can’t think_ – or if he’s even going to remember any of this later, because aren’t you supposed to mind-wipe people from the past so that you don’t affect the timeline or whatever?

Fucking Lenny and his fucking sci-fi movie retellings late at night when the lights were off. If he wasn’t so good at doing the voices and setting up the story, Mick would’ve told him to shut up and then he wouldn’t be having this problem. Ignorance really is bliss.

He wonders for a half a second whether future-him ever did meet Lenny again, like they’d promised right before they left juvie, but some guy from the ship – _holy crap that might have been a real spaceship_ – walks in. He’s tall and strong; smaller than future-him, but tough looking. Dressed in black. 

“You got something to say about my family too?” Mick says, best challenging tone he can manage.

“Is that what he wanted to discuss?” the guy drawls. Huh, Central City slum accent. “But no, kid, don’t worry. I don’t have time for speeches right now; we’re gonna head out in a minute.”

Mick crosses his arms. The guy has weird-ass eyes that look blue one minute and green the next. Bit like Lenny’s, not that he’d ever admit to staring at a buddy’s eyes, much less spend time trying to puzzle out what color they’d be called. Because that’d be way too girly, obviously. 

“So what do you want to talk about?” he asks.

The guy walks right up to him, towering a little – it should be intimidating, the way he’s standing, it’s classic intimidation tactics, but something about the guy’s face clearly telegraphs that he doesn’t mean it. Almost like he’s acting. Acting for a _camera_ , shit, the guy clearly thinks they’re being watched. 

Mick’s eyes instinctively flicker around and he sees the guy jerk his chin, just a little, not even a nod but a confirmation that Mick’s reading him right. They’re being watched and this guy wants to warn him. Fuck, it’s just like those psych sessions they tricked him into; told him what he said would be confidential but didn’t tell him about all those recorders they’d stashed to take down everything he said and use it against him at his next parole hearing ‘cause he’s a danger to fucking society. 

They were right, it turned out, but he’s still burnt up about it. 

He looks up at the guy, says, “You trying to scare me?”

“Yeah,” the guy says, staring right at him like he’s trying to convey something. “I’m trying to scare you. You need to take care of the people here, you got that?” Mick feels something press into his hand and he wraps his fingers around whatever it is, paper wrapped around something metal and small, like a lighter. “I know you’re even more dangerous than people like to think you are.” 

Holy crap, this is Lenny. This is grown-up Lenny. Lenny’s the only one who’s ever told him he’s _more_ dangerous; most people just settle for calling him dangerous. And Lenny had been talking about his _brain_ , too, not his pyro thing. Nicest thing anyone ever said to him.

So grown-up him is still hanging around with grown-up Lenny? That…doesn’t sound so bad, actually. Maybe he doesn’t turn _everything_ he touches to ash.

He stares blankly up at Lenny, who apparently still gets that little wrinkle right between his eyes when he thinks Mick is paying insufficient attention to something he considers important (location of the fire alarm, oncoming guards, the plot of Lord of the Rings, etc.).

“So I’m not going to threaten you,” grown-up Lenny continues, staring him right in the face with those pretty eyes. Man, Mick is going to have to speed up his plan to hunt down Lenny when he gets back; if Lenny grows up to have a face that pretty when he’s all full adult and everything, his adolescence is going to be hell, Mick just knows it. “I know better than that. I’m just going to assume that you’ll go with your gut instincts.” He pauses significantly. “Do what you know to be the right thing.”

“I’ll think about it,” Mick replies. It’s as good as a promise. He doesn’t quite know what Lenny means yet – his gut instincts have always been to _evade_ authority figures, not kowtow to them, but he feels pretty sure that the note he’s secreted away in his pocket will get him the rest of the info he needs.

Grown-up Lenny nods. “You probably shouldn’t light up in the house,” he says casually, turning away. “Too much can burn, as I’m sure you’re _well_ aware. Maybe try the garden.”

No cameras in the garden, got it. Mick shrugs, aiming for indifference. 

Once the ship takes off, he waits until the woman in charge of the place – she wants to be called Mother and won’t give them another name to use – is busy fussing over the new babies (unsurprisingly, the minute Mick wants a distraction, the baby his future self has dubbed his “future criminal partner” starts wailing uncontrollably and entirely without discernable reason, because Lenny is always good for an assist) and slips off to the garden. He finds a spot under some bushes where he’s pretty sure there aren’t any cameras and pulls out the thing Lenny gave him: some weird oblong metallic object, about the size of his index finger, with a piece of paper tightly wrapped around it.

He reads the note. Then, incredulously, he reads the note again twice more.

Oh, _crap_.

\-------------------------------

He waits a week. 

It’s stressful as hell; Mick’s a few months shy of eighteen years old, less than four months out of juvie, and he’s not exactly what you would call a patient person in the best of times. The girl that came with him (“Sara, Sara Lance”) is somewhere around twenty, lucky her. If the note wasn’t so specific about him needing her help, he would have told her to fuck off ten times already.

Probably for the best that he hasn’t, because the other kids are freaking weird. Accents may start all over the map but they’re all being melted down into so-called “proper” pronunciation and grammar. ‘Mother’ makes them do lessons of all sorts, math and language and science and shit, and you get punished if you don’t listen or behave or sit up straight or whatever. The other kids seem to think ‘Mother’ is omniscient, ‘cause she always knows if you’ve done something wrong, but Mick knows about the cameras. Doesn’t make him behave any better, though. Mick’s spent more time sitting in a corner or in Time Out than he ever has before. _Ever_.

He spends a lot of time in the garden, lighting little fires in carefully dug-out fire pits. No one ever questions why the pyro spends time with fire, and the familiarity of the flames is deeply comforting.

Mick’s wondering if it’s time to broach the subject of the note with Miss Sara, Sara Lance, when she comes to find him first. 

“Wow, you really like fire, don’t you?” she said. It’s a shitty opening, but whatever, he needs to talk to her anyway, so he waves for her to sit down.

They’re both quiet for a long minute, both trying to figure out how to phrase what they need to say. Mick’s unsurprised when Sara’s the one that starts talking first. Words are definitely not his specialty.

“I, uh, heard that your family died in a fire,” she says tentatively, polite enough to leave out the ‘that you started’ bit which she’s no doubt also heard. ‘Mother’ is pretty free with the details of other people’s lives. “That’s pretty tough.”

He shrugs. “I don’t really remember it,” he tells her honestly.

She frowns. “Mother said you were picked up there,” she says suspiciously. “By the, uh–”

“Time travelling us from the future?”

“…yeah. Those. Weren’t you picked up right at the moment the fire was happening? Right after – I mean, your family – I mean –”

Mick’s mouth twists and he looks down at his hands, not stepping in to rescue her from having shoved her foot down her throat and waiting until she stutters off into silence. “That wasn’t my family,” he tells her quietly. “Well. Not my birth family, anyways. They died when I was ten.” He hesitates, eyes burning a little at the reminder. “That was the second family I burned. I’m kinda bad news.”

“Was it an accident?” she asks.

“According to my shrink, it was. Both times,” he says bitterly. “But it being an accident or not doesn’t change much for the ones that burned, you know? I didn’t even like this last set, they were shitty foster parents, but they didn’t deserve to burn just because I have a thing for fire that I can’t keep under control.” He thinks about it. “Well, they _probably_ didn’t deserve it. I’d only been there a few months.” The man had slapped him around some, sure, but it was nothing serious. He hadn’t even started the goddamn fire this time; he’d just been drawn downstairs by the familiar smell of ignition and found an electric fire sparking beautifully through the kitchen. Not like the first time, with the lighter fluid, and the curtains, and the way it spread without warning. In both cases, though, he just lost himself in the flames, watching them go up. Didn’t warn anyone. Ended up just running away, unable to get help, unable to stop watching even after he’d saved his own skin. So it was his fault in the end, either way.

Sara nods. “Still, that’s tough,” she says. “You haven’t burned us down yet, at least.”

“I won’t,” he tells her. “We got other things to worry about.”

She frowns at him. “What do you mean?”

Mick worries his lower lip between his teeth. “How happy are you here?” he asks. “Like, you like whatshername?”

“Mother?” she asks, shrugging a little. “She’s super strict, which is pretty annoying. Treats me like I’m a little kid. But I guess she means well?” 

“That’s the thing,” Mick says, instinctively lowering his voice to a whisper, barely moving his lips. He drops his head down to stare at the little fire he made, lowers himself onto his belly as if he’s trying to get a better look. Sara follows suit. “I don’t think she means well.”

“What do you mean?” Sara’s voice is equally hushed. Mick’s not sure if she believes him, but at least she’s willing to play along.

“One of the time travelers told me what was up,” he mutters, still staring at the fire instead of at Sara. “They had to steal their selves back because this group called the Time Masters is hunting them down, but if they – I mean, we – stay here too long, our timelines get altered. It’s as if we never existed past the moment we were taken. Your father and sister never see you again, I never hook back up with Lenny, none of it ever happens.”

“I figured as much,” she hisses back. “Stuff my future self said. And Mother is hiding us from these Time Masters.”

“She _works_ for them,” he whispers. “That’s what all the lessons are for, training the kids up to be handed over to the Time Masters when they get broken in enough. She’s already started with you and me, even though there’s no reason to do it if we’re just going to be heading back, right? But those lessons –”

“Shit,” Sara breathes, seeing it. “She started me on them, saying that it was just because she doesn’t want us to waste time not learning stuff, but some of the stuff I’m learning wouldn’t be useful to me back in my time. Obscure physics, navigation basics…I thought she wanted me to learn stuff so I could be more useful when I became a time traveler, but it didn’t make any sense to teach it to me now because it would create a paradox, wouldn't it, if I knew this stuff before I knew about time travel.”

“Plus fucking pronunciation,” Mick reminds her.

Sara makes a face. “That part was always the creepiest,” she complained, still _sotto voce_. “British-y person grabbing a bunch of kids from all over the world and then beating it into their heads that they aren’t speaking right until they sound like her? I mean, _hello_? Imperialism much?”

“Makes sense if you want to wipe out someone’s past,” Mick affirms. “That bit where she puts you in Time Out for hours and hours alone? That’s called _solitary_ , and it’s illegal to do to minors. And it always feels like you’re in there so much longer than it actually ends up being…”

“I think it’s a TARDIS,” Sara tells him. “I didn’t want to say anything, but the time in Time Out room _definitely_ runs at a different speed than it does outside – I tested it with a pair of watches.”

“Stick someone in solitary long enough,” Mick says grimly. “And they’ll do _anything_ to be let out.” He knows that from juvie; they were real clear about the nasty shit that awaited you in prison if you didn’t shape up.

“Yeah, like join the Time Masters,” Sara replies, equally grim. “Shit. And the babies won’t ever know any better.”

“And it effectively wipes out our older selves from the timeline,” he tells her. “Solves the Time Masters’ problem very neatly.”

“So what do we do?”

Mick’s sharp ears, trained from years of foster care and juvie to always expect someone coming, hear the whisper of a footstep.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he says, raising his voice to a hoarse stage-whisper – loud enough to be overheard, soft enough to sound like he was trying to keep it quiet. “When I look at it, I feel like all my problems can be solved.”

Sara looks at him like he’s nuts and he glares at her, jerks his head towards the flames. “Yeah,” she replies, still a bit confused. “You know it doesn’t _actually_ solve everything, though, _right_?”

“I _know_ that,” Mick replies a little impatiently. “I just wanted to show you so maybe you could understand me a bit more.”

“I’m so happy to see that the two of you are getting along better,” ‘Mother’ says from where she’s snuck up on them. Sara starts violently; Mick mimics her reaction. “It’s getting a little late, though; why don’t you both come inside? You wouldn’t want to miss dinner.”

Her voice is friendly and kind and, well, _motherly_ and you know in your bones that if you disobey her your life isn’t going to be worth living for what she’ll do to you.

They both scramble to their feet, mumbling apologies. As they walk back, Mick reaches out, slips Sara’s hand in his and squeezes it. She looks at him. He smiles a little, trying to reassure her. _I have a plan_ , he thinks, trying to convey it in his face. _I know what I’m doing. I think._

Sara gives him a little smile back. He’s disturbed her cool with these revelations, but she’s on his side; he was worried she’d end up like one of Mother’s spies. The brunette girl, the twins with the red hair, the sandy haired kid with the cockney accent – you do so much as breathe wrong around them, they’ll report you, the worthless little snitches skittering around like cockroaches. 

A nicer person might concede that they were clearly raised to do this, pampered and primped as Mother’s little favorites as long as they served her interests, but Mick’s not nice. He’s going to get his future friends away from here before they get twisted into something like that. 

Sara sneaks into his bedroom later that night, wraps her arms around him. He twitches – goddammit, he’s _seventeen_ – but wraps his arms around her in return, trying not to make this awkward.

“Have you got a plan?” she whispers in his ear. “And you even _think_ of taking advantage –”

“I _won’t_ ,” he hisses back at her. If only because he doesn't want to get slapped again. “And I’ve got one, yeah, but I’m not saying nothing inside.”

He can’t see Sara’s eyes narrow in the dark, but he can feel her hands tightening into fists on his upper arms. Sara’s pretty sharp; she knows what he’s not saying, and it’s not just because there isn’t any real privacy in the boys’ dormitories. “Right,” she says on an exhale. “When?”

“Soon as you get out of punishment for _breaking curfew_ ,” he hisses. 

“They won’t catch me,” she replies, raising her voice a little.

He kicks her. She kicks him back.

“Tomorrow,” he decides. 

She nods.

They remain curled up for another twenty minutes or so, supposedly to make the idea that she snuck over for a quickie realistic. Mick’s pretty sure it has more to do with the fact that they’re both fucking _terrified_.

\-------------------------

“Just so you know, I hate your plan,” Sara tells him.

“It’s not my plan,” Mick replies dismissively. “It’s my buddy Lenny’s plan. When he’s grown up, that version of him, I mean. We’re still buddies in the future, apparently. Trust me, he’s got a mind like a steel trap; it’ll work out just fine.”

Sara sighs gustily. “Do we even know if the thingamajig will work?”

“ _No_ , we _don’t_ , which is why this is _step one_ of the plan,” he replies snottily. “Happy now?”

“You’re a _jerk_.”

“Oh, yeah? You’re a –”

“Oi, you two fightin’ again?” Sandy-haired boy pokes his head past a tree. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you; Mother won’t like it.”

Mick flips the kid – Michael or something? – off. 

Kid’s eyes go wide with avaricious glee. Mother gives rewards for good little boys who report infractions of her infinite set of rules (of which Mick is currently violating the no slouching, no cursing, and no fighting variety) and you can literally see the idea of a gift popping into his head.

“Actually, this is how grown-ups flirt,” Sara says in her best good-little-girl voice. “Hasn’t Mother told you that?”

Michael hesitates, suspicious. “Mick’s still breaking the rules,” he points out.

Sara shakes her head sadly. “It’s not breaking a rule if you’re doing it to live up to the archaic standards marketed to the entire segment of the population of a feminine persuasion as a representation of appropriate gendered interactions, all of which are designed to uphold preexisting misogynistic societal structures and enable single-gendered – read, masculine – breaches of otherwise enforceable social norms.”

Mick can literally see the moment where Michael gets overwhelmed with unfamiliar words. He’d be confused as well if it hadn’t been for Lenny having a surprisingly similar nervous breakdown that one time about his little sister reading some romance novel at what Lenny termed an “impressionable age.” He has no idea where Lenny had got it from, though, to be honest.

Sara notices him smirking and winks at him. 

“He still broke a rule,” Michael argues.

“No, you’re right,” Mick breaks in. “I should behave better. Can you tell Mother I’m going to the Time Out room by myself?”

Michael blinks – no one _ever_ volunteered for the Time Out room, because that place was fucking _horrifying_ – but he scarpers off obediently enough.

Sara and Mick exchange glances. He pulls out the metallic object grown-up Lenny had given him and presses the button on top. According to the note, and confirmed as theoretically possible by Sara, who was from a bit further into the future than him, it was a remote control designed to summon something that would get them an exit route. He’s never seen a remote control this tiny, but Sara swears that in her time period, remotes keep getting smaller and smaller, so presumably this is just an extension of that. 

“I’ll get the babies and meet you back out here in ten,” Sara says, jumping to her feet. “You’ve got the distraction covered?”

Mick grins. He’s already been past the corridor with the Time Out room once this morning, setting up the little surprise that had been hidden in the bottom of the remote. Lenny’s so thoughtful. Mick’s never played with C4 before. He hopes that this means that he gets to do it more in the future. 

“See you in ten,” he confirms and runs off to pull a fire alarm. 

He’s burned two families already; he’s not going to let anyone here get injured. No one lives anywhere near the wing with the Time Out room, for obvious nightmare-related reasons, so the blast should be reasonably controlled and harmless, but if he knows the macabre nature of little kids – and boy, does he ever – they’ll all flock straight over to watch the havoc. Mother will have her hands full with them, giving them a short window to escape with their babies.

The C4 works precisely as expected – there were freaking _diagrams_ drawn on the back of the note from Lenny, because Lenny is anal like that, but it worked out for the best for once, though seriously if Lenny’s drawing diagrams of bombs from memory with a pencil stub he’s definitely been hanging out with Mick too much – and Mick kicks his own ass running at full speed all the way around the house the long way around. Goddamn _mansion_.

He makes it back to the meet up point just in time to see the shimmer of air above them, a freaking _spaceship_ bursting out of thin air and coming to a perfect landing, the door sliding open.

“Fucking _awesome_ ,” Mick breathes, forgetting for the first time in his life the flames rapidly being extinguished behind his back. 

“Fucking _babies_ ,” Sara snarls, also behind him. He turns to look at her – she put two of the kids’ bassinets on a tray from the kitchen and has the third one’s bassinet slung under one arm. “Don’t just _look_ ,” she snaps at him. “Come get one!”

He picks Lenny, of course. Cute kid. The other two babies are making pathetic little newborn noises of distress, but Lenny – who’s been kicking up a hell of a storm in the nursery, by all accounts, given that newborns aren’t even supposed to be _able_ to flip themselves like that – is quiet as a mouse. 

“He’s a good kid,” Mick tells Sara with satisfaction as they approach the spaceship. He hesitates for a second at the imposing looking door, but he waves his hand over the pad. The door clicks and open, air hissing as the airtight seal is released. 

“I can’t believe this plan worked,” Sara says. 

“It hasn’t worked yet,” Mick says, hurrying on board. “We still need to get out of here – and then we need to figure out how to get the babies back to the correct places in the timeline.”

When he gets to the bridge, he pauses again. This part just seems really stupid. Really, really stupid. He’s gonna look like a fucking idiot in front of Sara. 

Damnit, Lenny.

“Uh, Gideon?” he says tentatively to the empty air in front of him.

There’s a whirring noise and all the lights start flickering on.

“Greetings, Kronos,” a pleasant, mechanical-sounding female voice said. “What are your instructions?”

Holy crap that actually worked.

“Holy crap there’s an AI?” Sara says, sounding impressed. “You have your own AI?”

“Uh, first things first, can you get us out of here?” Mick asks, trying to play it off cool when he really wants to jump up and down and punch the air a bit. “And make sure no one follows us?”

A freaking _hologram_ of a _giant floating head_ appears above the console. It smiles at him. “Certainly, Kronos. I would advise you to buckle the children into the seats to ensure that they are not shaken during transit.”

Mick nods and he and Sara run around doing that as the outside door slides shut and the ship begins to take off. Mick and Sara both glance at the captain’s chair, then at each other.

They both dash for it, but Mick makes it first, shoves Sara away, and yelps, “The AI answers to me! We don’t know if you’re recognized yet!” The yelping was because she stepped on his insole which fucking _hurt_.

“Fine,” Sara says, scowling. “But we’re getting me recognized as co-captain _as soon as possible_.”

“Whatever. Go buckle in and keep an eye on the kids!”

“I’ve generated a force field around the chairs holding the children, Kronos,” Gideon chimes in. “It should keep them stable regardless of whatever turbulence we may encounter in our escape, as well as at an optimal temperature.”

“Uh, that sounds good, Gideon,” Mick tells her. “Also, can you call something else, not, uh, Kronos?”

“Is that your superhero name?” Sara calls out from where she’s buckling herself into her chair, smirking.

“Mr. Rory’s traditional alias is ‘Heatwave’,” Gideon cheerfully informs them. “Yours, Ms. Lance, is ‘White Canary.’”

Mick guffaws at the expression on Sara’s face. “Nice,” he cackles. “ _Mary had a pretty bird/feathers bright and yellow_ – they’re right about your legs, at any rate –”

“ _Fuck off_ ,” Sara said, blushing bright red. 

“Mr. Rory, we are encountering some resistance to leaving,” Gideon informs them peaceably.

“What do you mean?” he says, straightening up. “Is it…uh…the woman at the orphanage?” He’ll be damned if he keeps calling that bitch _Mother_. 

“Yes, sir. She has activated a shield around the Refuge that will make it difficult to exit.”

Mick bites his lip. _Shit._

“Does this ship have weapons?” Sara asks.

“Yes, Ms. Lance. This ship is considerably well-armed by all current standards.”

“Great,” Sara says. “And the shield is _outside_ of the Refuge, keeping us from getting out?”

“That is correct.”

“Mick –”

“Reading you loud and clear, Canary-bird,” Mick says, grinning. “Gideon, please hail the Refuge and pass on this message: Take down the shield, or we open fire. You have to the count of ten.”

“Understood, Mr. Rory. Transmitting the message now.”

Sara’s practically bouncing in her seat, even though she’s buckled in. “Gideon, tell me we have photon torpedoes,” she says excitedly.

Mick points an accusing finger at her. “Ah- _ha_! _Trekker_!”

“It’s _trekkie_ ,” Sara shoots back. “And it’s _nothing_ to be ashamed of.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s trekker, not trekkie,” he tells her. “Trekkie’s the insulting diminutive used by those outside the fandom, apparently.”

“Really?”

“How would I know? I don’t watch the show. Got a buddy that does, though; we caught a few episodes on TV a few times.”

“Ms. Xavier has now lowered the shield,” Gideon reports. 

“Great,” he says, flashing a grin at Sara, who returns it. “Let’s get out of here. Is there somewhere safe we can go?”

“There are several pockets in the Temporal Zone where we can remain unnoticed by other entities; it is typically used by Time Masters to stop for repairs in a safe area,” Gideon informs him.

“Yeah, let’s go there,” he decides. 

The next few minutes are fucking _wild_. 

“I can’t feel my face,” Sara says, sounding about as dazed as he feels. “That was awesome and we should do it again _stat_.”

“No kidding,” Mick replies. It feels like if his eyes get any wider, they’ll pop out of his head. “Did you see – when the green stuff…?”

“Oh yeah, definitely. And the, uh, whirlpool-like thing?”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Mick says appreciatively. “Gideon, are we in the Temporal Zone now?”

“That’s correct, Mr. Rory.”

“Great. How long would it take for you to calculate where and when we need to put back the babies so it’ll be, uh, like a few minutes right after they were taken out of the timeline?”

“I will be able to calculate those coordinates to such a degree of accuracy within a few hours, Mr. Rory.”

Sara pops out of her chair. “Let’s explore the ship!” she exclaims.

Gideon lowers the forcefield around the babies and they all start crying.

“Um. Feed the babies and _then_ explore the ship?” Mick offers.

Sara nods, looking concerned. “Uh, why do you think it’s that they’re hungry?”

“Because I don’t want to consider the alternative? I call Lenny, he’s a great baby.”

“Oh, sure, you take the _easy_ baby.”

“You’re kidding, right? Jax is _obviously_ the easy baby.”

Sara considers this. “Yeah, you’re right,” she concedes. “Jax is the easy baby. Lenny is the _cute_ baby.”

Mick nods. “And Marty’s the one with the big ears,” he says, pleased that they’ve managed to categorize things so effectively. “Let’s put him back first, yeah?”

“That would be on March 16, 1949,” Gideon announced. 

“The _forties_? That’s gonna be _super_ rad,” Mick enthused. 

Sara bursts out laughing.

“What?” he says defensively.

“Nothing, nothing…just, what time did you say you were from?”

“I’m guessing slang has moved on?” he asks, unimpressed.

Sara grins at him. “Just a bit.”

\------------------------

The ship’s pretty small, so exploring it doesn’t take too much time, even with one baby in each of their arms to calm them down – Jax went to sleep the second they put him in a bassinet because he is the world’s _easiest_ baby, arms wrapped around a little stuffed tiger Gideon produced out of the freaking Replicator and also, fyi, _they have a freaking Replicators_ – but it’s still pretty cool.

“So there’s the bridge, the kitchen, an exercise room –” Sara says, listing off what they’ve seen so far.

“And the armory of fucking _doom_ ,” Mick says, his eyes still dreamy. 

Sara sighs lustily. “Yeah, there was the armory, that was a great armory,” she says, clearly equally pleased by it. “There’s the cargo bay, that sort of office-like room with all the papers, and the living quarters.”

“Sounds about right,” Mick says. “Oh, plus the brig.”

“Yeah, can’t forget that,” Sara said drily. “Haven’t you noticed the issue?”

“No?”

“There’s _one_ living quarters.”

“Oh. Uh. Yeah, you’re right,” he said, hoping that he wasn’t going full on creeper right now. Damnit, he’s gonna kill Lenny for showing him that ‘Mirror, Mirror’ episode, he’s getting visions in full technicolor. 

He should probably offer to take the floor. Gideon could make a mattress. 

He does not want to take the floor.

Sara studies him, then cracks a grin. “We can split if you promise not to be a jerk about it,” she offers. “It’s a _gigantic_ bed.”

“Well, yeah, have you _seen_ adult me?” Mick says instinctively, then grins. Not sleeping on the floor, excellent. He’d figure out how not to embarrass himself or accidentally hit on the hot girl later. 

Sara grins broadly. “Yeah, actually, I have,” she says, and whistles appreciatively. Mick’s eyebrows shoot up and his mouth drops open. She pats him on the shoulder. “No, you still don’t have a chance. Maybe in 20 years.”

Mick sighs. Well, a chance in 20 years is better than nothing, he guesses. Lenny mutters sleepily in his arms. 

“We should probably get them back to the cribs Gideon made,” he suggests. Sara concurs, attempting to hold Marty in such a way that he is both comfortable and does not cry and also does not attempt to go for her breasts in search of snacks. She eventually decides that non-crying baby trumps personal discomfort and marches over to the office space (the main table thereof now acting as the nursery, since it is easily accessible from both the bridge and the bedroom and besides, neither of them know what to do with all the files and weird-looking maps and stuff) with a grim expression on his face.

Mick values his life and does not comment.

Lenny seems to be entertaining himself with trying to figure out how to focus his eyes despite the fact that Mick knows for a fact that babies aren’t able to do for at least a few more months. It involves lots of nose-wrinkling. 

He totally called the better baby.

Other than Jax, who is _still_ peacefully asleep, little chest rising and falling, as he is clearly the saint-king of all babydom.

The babies all go down to sleep fairly easily – Mick assumes this is due to the time travel and he asks Gideon to let them know if any of the babies wake up and need something, no matter where they are on the ship – and they split up to go review the areas they found most interesting.

Despite going different ways, they unsurprisingly both end up in the armory. In their defense, it is an _awesome_ armory.

“I’m going to check out the bridge again,” Sara said reluctantly, running her palm along a super sweet long stick with a knife on the end (a glaive, according to Sara). 

Mick has found something which Gideon informs him is a copy of his primary weapon in the future, some sort of heat wave gun. He is in love. He waves her off. 

As a result, Mick’s not on the bridge when they get hit with a blast that knocks him right off his feet. “Gideon, what’s going on?” he yells. “I thought you said the Temporal Zone was safe!”

“We are being targeted by another timeship,” Gideon replies calmly. “They have managed to locate us in the Temporal Zone.”

“What did we do to them?” he hears Sara yell. “You know what, _I don’t even care_. Now _dodge_ , goddamnit!”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Lance, but you are not authorized –”

“I authorize Sara to give any orders she damn well _wants_ ,” Mick immediately yells at the top of his lungs, toss the heat gun aside (he apologizes to his new best friend in his head) and runs towards the office. “Sara, fuck them up, I’ll get the babies somewhere safer!”

Sara glances at him with surprise as he dashes into the bridge, aiming for the office. “You don’t want to take charge, _captain_?” she asks.

“I don’t care who’s in charge,” Mick says shortly, inspecting the cribs to make sure that all three babies – who were all crying – were uninjured. “Besides, you probably have better tactics than me; you’ve actually seen, what’s it called, Star Trek 2 instead of just having it described to you.”

Sara still looks surprised, but also pretty pleased. “Wrath of Khan, you mean? Why would that be – oh. _Oooooh._ Yes, I like this. Gideon, I have an idea!”

Mick very carefully lifts Lenny up, cradling the back of his head as delicately as he can. Gideon has said earlier that the brig was the most secure place on the ship, far away from all the exit ports so that if the ship came under attack, it wouldn’t be breached. Mick puts Lenny in with Jax and moves Marty over as well, then picks up the first crib and runs it down to the brig. Worst case scenario, he can hide in there with the babies (and his heat gun) and fight off whoever comes in after them. 

He says as much to Sara when he runs back in for the second crib.

“Good idea,” she says, nodding and studying the screen intently. “I think I’m starting to…hmm. Gideon, you’re programmed with evasive maneuvers, right?”

“That is correct, Ms. Lance. I have been employing the ones most relevant to the situation.”

“I thought so,” Sara says with satisfaction. “Gideon, assuming we’re fighting another _you_ on board the other ship, could you figure out what evasive action you would take if you were bombarded with shots from 45 degrees starboard?”

“Yes, Ms. Lance.”

“Good. I want to attack them from that angle, and when they take the evasive action that is _most likely_ to be the appropriate response, I want you to hit them at the next place that plan of evasive action would take them to.”

“There is only an 78% certainty that they will employ that sort of evasive action, Ms. Lance.”

Sara grins. “No, Gideon, I’m going to guess that there’s a 78% chance that an objective individual or AI would use that type of evasive action. I’m willing to bet that the percentage of some asshole raised by fucking _Mother_ relying on their AI’s first instinct in an unexpected battle is going to be much higher.” 

Mick nods approvingly but didn’t bother to interfere with Sara’s scheming, carrying the babies down to the brig one at a time.

Sara glances at him when he came back for Jax, holding the baby close to his chest and keeping his knees bent in case they get hit by another shot that shakes the ship; he wants to be sure that he hits the ground and the baby is kept safe. Christ, they’re _newborns_ ; all this shaking can’t be good for them. He’s already gotten Gideon to stabilize the cribs as much as possible. 

He picks up the heat gun on his last round, grabs some bottles and pacifiers they’d been prepping in the kitchen, and locks himself into the brig with the babies. “Gideon, don’t open this door for anyone but me or Sara unless there’s an immediate threat to the babies’ lives,” he says to the air and turns to comforting the crying babies. 

It’s like a domino effect, he thinks to himself, barely catching himself from falling the next time the ship takes a nasty hit. One baby is crying so the others are crying and then he gets one to quiet down but then he hears the other ones crying so he starts crying again…hmmm. Mick picks up Jax and quiets him first. “Shhhh, baby,” he croons. “You be quiet and show all those other babies why they should be quiet too, now don’t you? You’re the easy baby. Be a good role model. Be the opposite of me. Yes, good baby, _quiet_ baby…”

Jax reluctantly quiets down and lets himself be given a few squirts from the bottle (Mick has no idea how much newborns eat and he’s not willing to risk over-feeding them, even if Gideon did make some creepy comments about the bottles containing a substance “identical in nutritional value to breast milk in every way”). Mick then picks up Lenny and puts him next to Jax, while continuing to pet Jax’s belly the way he likes. He tries humming a song he knows Lenny likes. 

Lenny slowly goes quiet and Mick can return him to his own crib and turn to the problem case: Marty. 

Luckily, Marty seems be quieting himself down. Probably wore himself out with the crying while the ship was shaking…

Huh. The ship’s not shaking any more. 

He glances up – Sara’s leaning against the door, watching him with a weird little smile on her face.

“Crisis averted?” he asks.

“Were you really just humming ‘Smoke on the Water’ to a baby?” she asks in return.

“It’s not like he can understand the lyrics,” Mick defends himself, but he finds himself smiling fondly down at the babies despite himself. “Besides, this way they’ll all grow up to have good taste. Isn’t that right, you little brats?” he says and leans over to give them each a kiss on the forehead. 

Sara seems to be fighting a laugh; her hand is covering her mouth. Whatever, he doesn’t care if she thinks he’s girly; she doesn’t seem to think much of him anyway.

Mick straightens up and comes over, about to swipe himself out when he pauses. “You never said if the crisis was over,” he says, a touch of suspicion in his voice.

Sara blinks in surprise, then grins and nods. “I didn’t think of that,” she says, sounding approving. “But yeah, it’s over. I blew up the other ship with a, um, well, Gideon had some sort of fancy technical name for it, but I totally just blew them up with a photon torpedo.”

Mick nods and swipes the door open. “Help me take ‘em back to the office,” he suggests. “Unless you think they’ll be more of them – who _were_ they, anyway, Gideon?”

“They were bounty hunters commissioned by the Time Masters to stop people from interfering with the timeline and are limited in number,” Gideon reports. “They also hunt down unauthorized users of timeships.”

“Unauthorized users of timeships?” Sara said, helping Mick pull the cribs down the corridor. “That’s a mouthful.”

“Such unauthorized users are typically referred to as time pirates,” Gideon says.

Mick laughs. “We’re unauthorized users,” he says, beaming. “At least according to the Time Masters. Does that make us time pirates?”

Sara starts laughing as well.

“Gideon,” Mick says very thoughtfully. “Can your replicator make us a pirate flag? You know, the black one, with the white skull and crossbones? I want to put it up in the bridge.”

Sara is now bent over laughing.

“Somewhere nice and noticeable,” he continues, encouraged. “So next time we hail someone, it shows up on the screen. Oh, and hats! We need hats!”

Sara is gasping.

“Can’t be a pirate without a hat, after all.”

Wheezing, Sara says, “I can’t believe you’ve never seen Pirates of the Caribbean.” 

“…you mean like the Disneyland ride?” he asks. He’d only been once, when he was very little, but man, he’d loved that ride. 

Sara literally falls down and has to curl up by the wall for a while. It means Mick has to drag the cribs back by himself, but he’s whistling happily. Sara looks much happier now that some of the tension of the whole kidnapping-and-internment-with-Mother thing is over with and they seem to be away free and clear; it’s a good look for her.

Also, he gets Gideon to replay the battle for him. Sara is _badass_. 

He’ll have to thank grown-up Lenny for insisting he bring her along when he next sees him.

\--------------------

They drop off Marty first, since he’s the most pesky of the babies. They don’t get to spend too much time in the 1940s or 1950s or whenever, because travelling back in time made Sara go _temporarily blind_ (apparently time travel causes side effects, fuck that shit) and that freaked them both right out.

Mick reasons that they can always go back. Sara agrees, though she does point out that the 1950s _sucked_. 

“There was Elvis,” Mick argues.

“And racism. And sexism. And general awfulness on all fronts. Like, wasn’t McCarthyism from the 50s?”

“Yes, but we can punch anyone who says anything dumb in the face and then _go see Elvis_.”

“…I’ll consider it.”

Going in reverse order, they drop off Lenny next, though Mick and Sara are equally reluctant to let him go.

“He’s so _cute_. Yes, you, you little cutie, you know who’s the cutest? _You_ are, yes you are, you’re the _cutest_ ,” Sara coos at Lenny, totally without shame.

Mick mostly just feels like he’s letting down his future self by letting Lenny go, even if it is to put him back in the correct time stream. 

As it is, they very nearly miss their window for putting Lenny back before anyone notices he’s gone; they end up putting him in another room and making it out like one of the nurses must’ve misplaced him. Hopefully no one gets fired. 

Jax is the last one they put back. It’s the hardest one yet, since it’s the most up-to-date hospital – the security at the other hospitals was _terrible_ , Marty’s because it was the 50s and people apparently didn’t steal babies from hospital rooms often enough for it to be a security issue and Lenny’s because he was born at Central City Mercy Hospital, which is a piece of shit. Luckily, Mick knows how to pick locks and Sara’s a damn good lookout. 

“I dated a bunch of assholes in high school,” she says, scowling. “My dad was a police detective. It wasn’t a good combination.”

“Bet it means you can fire a gun, though,” Mick offers, since he figures that’s got to be the only possible benefit of being related to a badge. Not that he’ll say as much, obviously.

“Oh, _can I_ ,” she says with satisfaction. “I can also drink most people under a table.”

“I’ll have to test you on that one day,” Mick says. “We’ll see who’s the last one standing.”

“One day,” she agreed. “Nurse coming!”

“No problem, package is in place. Eagle has landed, all that crap. Let’s get out of here.”

They make it back to the ship – they’re temporarily calling it “Jolly Roger” after Captain Hook’s ship, mostly by virtue of not being able to think of any other pirate ship name and “Jolly Roger” being an infinitely more badass name than “Black Pearl” given that their ship _isn’t even black_ – with only a few distractions.

Mostly Mick getting distracted by a – to be fair – freaking _awesome_ poster for some sort of animated movie called _Aladdin_ , which has like a tiger and a monkey and a parrot and some sort of giant blue thing, which he assumes is the genie. When he points it out to Sara, she gets this horrified expression on her face and goes, “Holy crap, you’ve never seen _Aladdin_? Holy crap, you’re from the 80s, _you’ve never seen the Disney Renaissance_ , this is _terrible_.”

“I don’t even know what the hell the Disney Renaissance even is,” he grumbles. “I did see that _Fox and the Hound_ flick…”

“Oh my _god. Not the same_.”

When they’re back on the ship, they park it in the Temporal Zone and end up collapsing in the big bed. Turns out being awkward isn’t an issue when you’ve just done a prison break, a ship on ship fight, and then three time jumps before going to sleep because they wanted to make absolutely sure everyone was back in the timeline where they belonged. Sure, they’d been mainlining coffee and energy drinks since the second jump, but Mick’s getting the distinct feeling that the Time Masters don’t usually do that many jumps that close together.

He says as much to Sara in the two minutes before he passes out. Her response involves half-coherent muttering, cursing, and a reference to flying sharks, so he figures that she’s already beaten him there.

Waking up, on the other hand, is _super_ awkward. 

You know how there are movies where a boy and girl are forced to share a bed due to reasons vague and they end up all adorably curled into each other’s arms first thing in the morning, so they wake up when the light is all low and end up smiling cutely with embarrassment in each other’s faces? (There were a lot of Lifetime movies on in foster house #4, so sue him.)

Yeah, that’s not how it goes. For one thing, the light isn’t low, Gideon just snaps it on to full eye-searing fuck-my-life brightness when she determines it’s time for them to wake up, accompanying what may or may not be the sound of a damned soul screaming on its way to hell. Sara’s managed to literally turn herself _upside down_ in her sleep, so when she kicks out in alarm her foot goes right into Mick’s collarbone, causing him to nearly fall off the bed. Which he manages to stop doing by grabbing the blanket, which Sara had bundled around herself like a heat-seeking parasite, so she ends up being pulled towards him. There had been more kicking involved. Also, lots of cursing.

When they finally untangled themselves from the sheets and blankets, they’re both wide-eyed and panting and _nothing_ is cute or adorable. On the bright side, if Mick was suffering from any morning wood earlier, which was his original fear, he sure as hell isn’t by now.

The fact that there are two bathrooms on the ship is possibly the only thing that keeps them from killing each other.

“So, what’s the plan now?” Sara says, hunting through the cabinets for something that isn’t sugar free. Mick had already done that and had resigned himself to tasteless oatmeal for breakfast. If he imagined really, really hard, he could pretend it was prison food.

In response to Sara’s question, he eagerly abandons his plate and pulls out the note which he’s been keeping in his inside vest pocket, next to his heart. It’s the best place to keep it away from pickpockets, after all.

“Unfortunately, the Time Masters are probably going to be after us,” he says, reviewing the note again even though he’s got it memorized. “After all, we got the babies back on track with the timeline, but now we’ve fucked it all up for us.”

Sara nods. “Got it, no going home quite yet,” she replies. “No problem, I’m in college anyway; I’m supposed to be getting some distance from the parental units.” 

“Oooh, college, fancy,” he says, and she flips him off, smirking. “Anyway, the note doesn’t actually explain what the next steps should be, so I figure we should do the next best thing to the note.”

“What’s that?”

Mick grins. “Get the person who wrote it, obviously,” he says with satisfaction. “Now, I wasn’t listening to most of the lessons back at the creepy kid house, but if we go too close to another Time Master’s stream, we risk causing a paradox, right? And I’ve got no idea what year they picked up Lenny as a grown-up. So I figure we’ll do the next best thing and pick him up when he’s still a teenager, like us.”

“Like _you_ , you mean; I’m twenty, remember?”

“Like that makes a big difference. It’s just as illegal for you to drink.”

“I can vote!”

“Yeah, but _do_ you?”

“Uh. Well, yeah. Well, when I was eighteen I did. Once.” She crossed her arms when he smirked at her. “It was the presidential election! Do you vote?”

“A, I’m too young,” he points out smugly. “B, when I’m an adult, I’m probably a felon, so I can’t vote anyway.”

Sara rolled her eyes. “So we’re picking up this buddy of yours? How do we know when’s the best time to do it? About the same time we picked you up?”

Mick shrugs. “He’s a few years younger than me,” he says. “But there’s no reason we can’t pick him up when he’s a little older…Gideon, is there a particular time period that would be best to pick up Lenny? That is, Leonard Snart, as a teenager?”

“The point that would cause the least disruption to the timeline would likely be in 1990, shortly before Mr. Snart’s eighteenth birthday.”

Mick nods. That makes Lenny still younger than he is, because the other way around is just weird. Grown-up version of Lenny excluded; that was actually pretty cool.

The time jump is a little easier this time, either because it’s a short jump – only two years – or because they’re starting to get used to it.

They try Lenny’s house first, floating the Waverider on cameo mode right above it, but there’s a lot of shouting inside so they decide not to go in until it’s died down. Ironically enough, while they tour the nighttime view of Central City from the air, they end up finding Lenny sitting in a park. He’s unmistakable, even if he is a few years older than the last time Mick saw him – he’s not quite at what Mick knows will be his full height (or maybe it’s just the way he’s slumped over by the swing set, knees pulled up and head down) and he’s a lot skinnier than he will be eventually, but he’s definitely grown into those cheekbones. 

Mick’s watching through the window when they break stealth mode, so he gets to see the look on Lenny’s face when he first sees the spaceship. And it is rather unmistakably a spaceship, too.

Unsurprisingly, Lenny’s face looks rather like a religious man would when faced with a choir of angels sweeping down from the heavens. He’s such a closet nerd. 

Then Mick opens the door to go pick him up and Lenny sees _him_ , and his face is…fuck. Mick doesn’t see himself as having a low self-esteem or any of that crap, but having Len look like he’s just forgotten that there’s a goddamn spaceship even there just because Mick’s presence eclipsed it is like having a hundred birthdays all at once. 

Feeling strangely like he’s floating, Mick bounds down the ramp and gathers Lenny up in a hug. 

It’s not really how they do things most of the time, but Lenny clutches back at him without even the slightest bit of hesitation, holding on so tight it’s almost painful, not that Mick gives a damn. “They said you disappeared,” Lenny says in that so-familiar accent, his voice thick like he’s having trouble swallowing something. “After the second fire – it was ruled accidental, just so you know, they found the thing that caused it, a fucking broken microwave – they said you must’ve gotten scared that you’d get blamed for it and ran off, but there hasn’t been any word of you, any sightings…”

Mick grins. “It’s a bit more complicated than that,” he tells Lenny, finding himself compulsively petting Lenny’s skull like he had when Lenny’d been a little baby and totally unable to stop himself. The short hair is very nearly as soft, which makes no logical sense. “See, I kinda got kidnapped instead.”

“Kidnapped?” Lenny echoes, a slightly dangerous tone entering his voice. Mick doesn’t know if Lenny’s killed anybody in the few years they’ve been apart, but he has no doubt that if Lenny had the people who’d taken him in front of him, he’d go straight for their throats. It gives him a nice fuzzy glow, even if it’s undeserved. 

Also, Lenny has clearly totally forgotten about the spaceship. Mick is a fucking _god_ , that’s what he is. 

He jerks his thumb back at the ship. “It travels in time,” he tells Lenny. “For me, the fire was little over a week ago.”

Now Lenny stares at it, then back at Mick. “Mick, you’d tell me if you were an alien from Gallifrey, right? Or, uh, met one?”

Mick blinks. “I’m not an alien, where’d you get that stupid idea?” he says. “I don’t think there’s any such thing. Apparently they invent time travel in the future and you and me end up joining up on a time travel mission...”

Sara ostentatiously clears her throat from the door. 

They both turn to look at her.

“Maybe we can continue this conversation inside the ship?” she suggests. “You know, where no one _else_ will walk up and see the anachronistic spaceship?”

Mick drags a willing Lenny on board. 

“You must be Lenny,” Sara says, tossing her hair a bit. “I’m Sara Lance.”

“It’s Len, actually; Leonard Snart,” Lenny says. “Only people who call me Lenny are my baby sister. And this lunkhead, of course.”

Sara crosses her arms. “Mick seems to think you’re pretty smart.”

Lenny smirks. “I’ve got all sorts of useful skills,” he drawls. The two of them are staring right at each other.

Mick wasn’t previously aware of the idea that they might not like each other, and he has no idea what to do if that happens. 

He only ends up worrying for about a minute, because suddenly Sara is saying, “You must have some excellent blackmail on Mick,” and Lenny’s going, “Of course I do,” and Sara goes, “You should share, there’s not really much to do during transit,” and somehow about three minutes later they’re talking about some sort of card game they both play and getting weirdly excited.

Mick accidentally seals the deal when he mentions that Sara used some strategy from Star Trek to kick some bad guy ass. Luckily, Mick knows enough to realize that yelling at each other about the best Star Trek captain is actually a time-honored trekker bonding ritual, so he just perches on the wall and lets them have it out.

Ten minutes later, Lenny and Sara are fast friends and everything is right in Mick’s world. “We should show Lenny the rest of the ship,” he suggests in a moment of silence while they’re both trying to get oxygen back in their lungs. “And then we can pick where in time we want to go.”

Lenny holds up his hands. “Ah, ah, we’re not going anywhere unless we’re taking my sister,” he says. “I can’t leave her alone with my dad.”

“Why’s that?” Sara asks, frowning and eyes narrowing likes she’s got some idea.

Lenny shrugs, so Mick decides to clarify. “He’s an asshole that likes to slap kids around,” he says. “Ex-badge, so no one pays much attention. Canary-bird here’s dad’s a badge, too,” he tells Lenny.

“My sympathies,” Lenny says.

Now it’s Sara’s turn to shrug. “He’s not so bad,” she says. “Doesn’t hit us, even if he does drink too much when things go sour.” She catches the look on Lenny’s face. “Doesn’t hit us even if he _is_ drunk,” she clarifies. 

Lenny nods and his shoulders go down a bit. “That’s useful,” he says. “So can we pick up Lisa? I’m sure she’ll be delighted.” 

“I should warn you,” Sara says. “It’s not all fun and games – those bad guys Mick mentioned? They’re still after us. We’re technically time pirates.”

Lenny blinks, long and slow. “Time pirates, huh?” he says. 

“Yep,” Mick says, popping the letter behind his teeth.

“Do we get hats?”

“This is some eighties thing I don’t know about, isn’t it?” Sara says suspiciously.

\------------------------

Lisa is nine years old, wearing a Gideon-generated pirate hat, and perched on the main console of the Jolly Roger, still giggling madly after a rousing rendition of “Yo Ho, A Pirate’s Life for Me” that involved literal pints of beer for the adults and grape juice for Lisa. Luckily, Gideon is self-cleaning, because that grape juice is going _everywhere_. She is clearly having a great time.

As always when Lisa’s enjoying herself, Lenny is practically glowing with delight. Mick’s enjoying himself watching all of them have a good time. 

“I like you better now than when you were a baby,” Sara tells Lenny very seriously. This is not her first (or second or third) pint of the _very_ strong future-beer and she’s gotten to the giggly stage, but she’s still steady on her feet; Mick’s impressed enough to consider reconsidering his earlier challenge. “And you were a _really_ cute baby.”

“You got to see Lenny as a _baby_?” Lisa says, sounding fascinated. “Can _we_ go see Lenny as a baby?”

“That sounds like a terrible idea, Lise,” Lenny says hastily, but he sounds fond. “Now why don’t we go set up your bed while we still have some energy, okay?” 

Lisa groans theatrically, but hops off. Lenny takes her by the hand and they go off to go set up Lisa’s brand-new mattress down in the brig. Lenny had initially had some concerns about that, but he was convinced easily enough when he was told that it was the safest place on the ship, and Lisa declared that she was very excited to play “escaping pirate captive” instead of sleeping, so it was agreed all around. Plus, there weren’t exactly many other options, and no one wanted to sleep with a kid that sometimes wet the bed while having nightmares. (Lenny had glared when he’d mentioned it, but had been appeased when no one even thought about making fun of Lisa for it.) 

Sara waits until Lenny leaves the room to turn to Mick with a mildly distressed expression on her face. 

“What?” Mick asks, slightly alarmed. He might be very hazy with beer but he’d really thought they were all getting along.

“This might be weird to say to you, but I need to say it to somebody and you’re the only one here,” she says. “Your friend is _very_ pretty.”

“He is, isn’t he?” Mick says, pleased she’d noticed. “It’s the eyes, innit?”

“Oh god, don’t get me started about the eyes. The eyes and the whole,” she waves at the general direction of her face, “you know, everything. It’s _unfair_ , is what it is. I can’t do that with _makeup_.”

“I wonder what Lenny would look like in makeup,” Mick muses. Sara groans and drops her head on his shoulder, beating it a few times before cuddling in. He wraps an arm around her and pats her shoulder lightly. “I know,” he says comfortingly, because he really does know. “But we get to look at him, isn’t that something?”

“I’m twenty years old,” she says, voice muffled in his shoulder. “Fuck _everything_.”

“Am I interrupting something?” Lenny drawls from the door. He’s giving Mick that expression where he’s wondering if he’s not wanted, jaw tensed up but face blank as slate, which is silly. Mick shakes his head at Lenny’s weird thoughts.

“We’re just commiserating, s’all,” he tells Lenny, who seems to relax. “We share many burdens you wouldn’t understand. Also, we may need to pour Sara into bed.”

Sara snorts. “I can walk just fine,” she says, pulling herself up and away from him with remarkable flexibility. “You’re just…I don’t know, like a space heater. Isn’t he like a space heater?” she asks Lenny.

Lenny snickers. “He was the only one who didn’t notice when the heat went out in the middle of January,” he tells her, then hesitates again. “Where do you want me to crash? I don’t mind taking the office.”

“Pssssst,” Sara says, waving her hand in the air. “Have you _seen_ the size of the bed we’ve got? It’s _huge_. We can be grown-ups about this. But not Mick, because Mick is really big when he’s grown up, so he has to stay just the way he is.”

Mick staggers to his feet. He has no idea how Sara’s keeping her footing when the ship floor keeps rocking back and forth like that. He wraps an arm around Lenny’s shoulders for stability. “Besides, if anyone is gonna take the office, it’s Canary-bird here. She kicked me in the _face_ ,” he says mournfully. 

“It was your _collarbone_ , you big baby,” Sara says, and shoves at him. 

Lenny cracks up. 

They end up all collapsing in a giant pile on the bed which works out much better than it did when it was just Mick and Sara – Sara’s blanket-stealing ways are basically a perfect match for Lenny, who prefers to sleep above the blankets anyway, while also tolerating Mick’s natural octopus-like tendencies with significantly more grace than Sara would’ve. 

Also, seriously, this bed is super big. Mick knows he was tall and broad when he reached his full height and weight, but seriously, how many people did his future self have over at any given time, anyway?

He thinks about the fact that he was travelling with like eight other adults and shudders. Hopefully he just kept it to one or two. Lenny and Sara, that seems about right. Black kid seemed like he was around the age Mick is _now_ , so he’s going to hope that he didn’t start robbing the cradle when he gets older; the same logic applies in reverse to the old guy; and black girl and white boy were wearing matching rings. And that Hunter guy just looked like an asshole.

Came off like one of _Mother’s_ brats, ugh. 

With that disturbing thought, he fell asleep.

He does not remember to tell Gideon not to do the horrific wake-up alarm of doom.

Lenny’s on his feet on the bed with a knife out in a hot second, but it conveniently means that Sara’s instinctive kick goes absolutely nowhere. “Gideon, _stop_ ,” Mick pleads, his head banging like he’s got the whole Rockettes line doing the can-can in there. 

They all sort of stand there in various poses of distress for a second – Lenny with a knife out, Sara huddled under the blankets, Mick clutching his head – before Lenny blinks a little and mutters “Lisa…” before staggering out the door.

“Gideon,” Sara says slowly and murderously. “How about we switch that to being the ‘someone is imminently going to kill us’ alarm, and make the wake-up call something a bit more soothing?”

“Certainly, Ms. Lance,” Gideon replied. If Mick didn’t know better, he’d say the mechanical voice sounded smug. 

Sara marches off towards the bathroom and Mick shakes his head a little to try to clear it. “Gideon, does the future have effective hangover cures?” 

Turns out they do, hallelujah. 

Lenny takes the note Mick still has and locks himself in the office with Gideon to try to make a plan for what to do next. Sara and Mick putter around a bit with the Jolly Roger, letting Lisa sit in the captain’s chair and trying to figure out what all the buttons mean with a combination of asking Gideon and experimentation. 

A few hours later, Lenny pokes his head out. “Do I ever want to know what you’re doing?” he asks.

“We’re teaching your little sister about velocity and acceleration,” Sara replies with a grin.

“Velocity means what speed you’re going right now; acceleration means how much faster you’re getting,” Lisa obediently parrots. “And that’s the acceleration lever!” she adds, pointing.

“Lisa, baby,” Lenny says. “You remember you promised me you’d wait until you were old before you started a career as a getaway driver? I’m gonna add ‘starship captain’ to the list.”

Lisa pouts. Mick ruffles her hair.

“So what’s the plan?” he asked Lenny. “The short version.”

“Short version?” Lenny asks, arching an eyebrow. “Okay. Short version: we, as big scary time pirates, are going to raid another ship or two and then attack a port.”

Lisa giggles.

Sara arches her own eyebrows. “Funny,” she says. “But for some reason I don’t think you’re joking.”

Lenny smirks. “I’m not,” he says. “According to Gideon, our future selves’ last known destination is the Vanishing Point; that’s the Time Masters’ port of call, so they’ve probably gotten captured or something. According to Gideon, due to our messing with the timeline so much, our future selves should still be in existence; they’re just timeline fragments right now and will be until we fix the timeline up. Unfortunately, this ship doesn’t have the mechanism for getting there; apparently it was tied into a homing beacon, so the previous owner – adult Mick, I assume – disabled it, rather violently. So we need to find another ship that _does_ have it. Therefore: we raid a ship and then attack a port to rescue our future selves. Because we are pirates.”

They all think about that.

“Argh, matey,” Sara finally says. “Let’s do the thing.” She pauses. “Should we drop off Lisa first?”

Lenny shakes his head. “Can’t risk it. Gideon says the Time Masters might try to go after members of our family to try to get to us,” he says regretfully. “And they can go back in the past to get to them. Lisa’s the only one I care about, and Mick here doesn’t have anyone but us.”

Sara scowls. “Wait, what about –”

“Your father and sister are apparently immune because they’re too closely intertwined with an anchor point in time,” Lenny says immediately. “I already checked. If anything alters their timeline, the Time Masters themselves would try to repair the timeline.” He pauses. “That being said, your mom, some of your friends, they don’t necessarily have the same immunity. You want us to drop you off, we can do it.”

Sara bites her lip, but shakes her head. “I’m not going to let you jerks go off without me,” she says. “You’ll either get yourselves killed or save the world without me, and either way where will that leave me?” 

“Living a normal life, maybe?” Lenny says, voice serious for once, devoid of mockery.

Sara smirks. It’s a bit weak, but it’s there. “Screw normal,” she declares, voice taking strength even as they listen. “Hasn’t Gideon explained? I’m the motherfucking White Canary.”

Lisa snickers. “Do I get a nickname?” she says hopefully. “C’mon, Giddy, what’s my name?”

“Your future alias is ‘Golden Glider’, Miss Snart,” Gideon says. Gideon likes Lisa best; this much is quite clear from her tone and the way doors just slide open whenever she’s even remotely in the vicinity. “You are widely considered to be both dangerous and beautiful.”

Also, Gideon certainly doesn’t sweet talk like that to the _rest_ of them.

“Gideon, what’s the best way to find a ship with the correct beacon?” Lenny asks. “Or should we just make noise until the Time Masters send another bounty hunter?”

“There was an incident in your future selves’ timeline in which they encountered a series of time pirates which had attacked a ship called the Acheron,” Gideon reported. “Following that incident, Captain Eve Baxter took the ship on her own and began to travel the timeline on her own without reporting back to the Time Masters. However, she has not significantly interfered with the timeline in a way that would cause the Time Masters to revoke her title of Time Master and declare her a pirate. She would possess both a beacon and any necessary maps.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Mick says. Sara nods.

“Sure, why not?” Lenny adds.

Lisa cheers. “C’mon, Giddy!” she cried out. “Set the course: second star to the right, and straight on till morning!”

\-------------------------

It takes two, maybe three days to hunt down the Acheron; it’s a bit hard to keep track of time in the vortex. Lenny tells Lisa the story of the rivers of Hades and then makes about a hundred terrible puns using the word “woe”. Mick spends most of his time either working out in the gym – fun, relaxing and less dangerous than starting fires, and also he’s never going to become his future self if he sits around like a bum all day – or sitting in the captain’s chair with Lisa on his lap cheering on Lenny and Sara’s increasingly vicious card game tournaments. Lisa has Gideon make them two posters, which she very carefully decorates for each person – glitter and stick-on sequins and gems being a must – and she and Mick take turns holding them up and chanting increasingly ridiculous cheerleading-style anthems, depending on who they’re rooting for at any given moment. Usually the person already winning. 

The sleep situation is significantly improved by the removal of the horrible morning alarm of doom, as well as the discovery that Gideon can project movies for them in there. Sara takes an unholy amount of delight in introducing the three of them to all of the movies from her time so she can enjoy watching what she terms “unspoiled” viewers. She then ruins this by cackling right before a big twist happens, so Lenny has taken to smacking her with a pillow every time she starts grinning, all without removing his eyes from the projection.

When they finally find her, ex-Time Master Captain Eve Baxter is a positive font of useful information once they unleash their deadly weapon (Lisa threatening to cry). Not only does she provide them with the necessary guidance to get the Vanishing Point, she also provides them with all sorts of useful _background_ information.

“I was a time travelling bounty hunter?” Mick asks, deeply suspicious. “ _That’s_ why Gideon keeps calling me Kronos?”

“More important: they named a time travelling bounty hunter _Kronos_ , really?” Len asks. “Titan of time? What are the rest of them called? Saturn? Do they get three girl bounty hunters to go together and call them Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos? Is this a theme thing? Tell me this is a theme thing. I love themes.”

“You’re a _nerd_ , you know that right?” Sara tells him. “Also, ask Gideon about your superhero name, you apparently learn nothing in twenty or thirty years, _Captain Cold_.”

“The ‘Cold’ thing I can live with,” Lenny protests, “but where does the Captain part come from? Do I look like someone who thrives in hierarchal organizations? I mean, _other_ than correctional facilities?”

“How old are all of you again?” Baxter asks suspiciously.

“Why don’t you tell us more about the Vanishing Point?” Sara says hastily. “Maybe draw us a map?”

After they return to the Jolly Roger, Lenny sends Lisa to go play with Gideon and sits them down the explain the plan. He prefaces it with a disclaimer that they’re not going to like it.

He’s right: they don’t like it.

“That is a _terrible_ plan,” Sara tells him, reaching out to grasp him lightly by the shoulders and shake him.

Mick nods.

“Okay, Canary-bird,” Lenny says peaceably. “You think of a better one.”

Sara makes a face. “I reluctantly concede your point,” she says. “But I just want to make it clear for the record that it is a _terrible_ plan.”

Mick generally agrees, but he’s definitely not going to come up with something better. At least they _have_ a plan, which is more than they had when it was just him and Sara.

Lisa is set up in the brig with instructions to Gideon that should anyone hostile approach, the jump ship should go back to 2007, where Sara was picked up, with a letter for Sara’s parents; Sara assures Lenny that they will be kind-hearted enough to adopt her once Sara explains the circumstances. Lenny agrees, mostly because he refuses to send Lisa back to his era to face their father alone. 

Then they get in costume. 

Mick and Sara have both explained, _repeatedly_ , to Lenny that Mick doesn’t look a damn thing like Kronos would’ve, assuming the whole Kronos thing happened around the time that they met the adult team. Lenny is adamant that going in dressed like bounty hunters is better than walking in bareheaded and obvious. 

At the very least, Mick thinks to himself as he snaps on the futuristic armor, it’ll help them survive the first time they get shot at. 

“So, everyone remember what they’re supposed to do?” Lenny asks.

“I go first, head left clockwise and set up as many traps, bombs and disturbances I can; you two head out two minutes later and then you make a straight line dash for the nerve center while Mick goes to rescue the grown-ups because he might get distracted by the bombs,” Sara recites, holding her helmet in her hands. She turns it over a little and bites her lip. 

“Okay, then,” Lenny says, but they all still hesitate a little. They’re goddamn teenagers and they’re not exactly suited for war, armor and deadly backpacks of surprises aside. It’s a little intimidating. 

“We are coming in to port of the side entrance utilized by the bounty hunters,” Gideon announced, her voice calm as always.

Sara nods. “Okay, then,” she says. “Break a leg, everyone.”

Then, of all things, she takes two quick steps forward and pops up on her tip toes to kiss Mick right on the mouth. He gapes at her. Lenny starts bristling a little, but she turns to him and does the exact same thing. 

Then, with a wicked little grin and a wink, she pops her helmet on. “See you on the other side, boys,” a deep, unrecognizable mechanized voice says, and Sara turns and heads out. 

They both stare after her.

Mick turns to Lenny, about to say something dumb like “Did you know she was into you? Or me? Are we supposed to fight about this?” because he sure as hell didn’t want to, when Lenny scowls, nods to himself like he’s decided anything, and then _he_ leans up and kisses Mick too. Right on the mouth.

Mick stares at Lenny with his mouth open even wider than before.

Lenny smirks at him, a little uncertain, mostly bravado. “It’s called sharing, Mick,” he advises. “Think about it.” Then he puts on his helmet and becomes a stranger.

Apparently daytime television is wrong and horrible love triangles aren’t the only possible results. Mick needs to think about this for literally half a second and then he whoops, punching the air.

Lenny nearly walks into the door. “I take it you approve,” he says in the helmet filtered voice. 

“Hell, yeah,” Mick says with satisfaction. “Are you kidding me? I’m not dumb enough to reject the prettiest girl I’ve ever met and the prettiest boy I’ve ever met, not _either_ of them. _Specially_ if we don’t have to fight about it.”

He can _see_ the tension go out of Lenny’s shoulders.

Grinning, Mick pulls on his helmet. “Let’s get the fucking bastards,” he says. 

They head out, then split up.

They’re all wearing Kronos’ armor, since that was the only model Gideon had aboard; the size had been tailored to them, but they were still otherwise identical, making splitting up a necessity.

Weirdly enough, the disguises really _do_ seem to work – no one looks at them too long. Mick figures it’s related to the weird time distortions Baxter told them about; because the Vanishing Point isn’t a fixed point in time, people who visit more than once can accidentally walk by prior versions of themselves, timeline fragments that are off on some earlier mission. So no one’s looking too closely. 

Mick walks his way straight over to where Baxter said the prisoners were generally kept and hey, look at that, there they are.

Most of them look fairly glum. He can recognize a seething Sara and oh, look, there’s grown-up Lenny, scowling thoughtfully like he thinks he can pull a prison break. Grown-up him looks mostly bored, but with that “I’m going to kill the first person who interrupts my dozing” sort of vibe. He doesn’t really recognize the rest of them – no sign of the black kid who tried to feed him a story about some super-secret spy organization named ARGUS – but he figures they must be related.

Probably best to let Lenny out first.

Mick goes over and pokes at the cell. It does a pretty cool shimmery force-field thing. He’s got no idea how to pick that type of lock.

“You’re wearing my outfit,” his older self growls. 

Mick checks that no one’s around and pulls off his helmet. “No shit, Sherlock,” he says, grinning at the dumbfounded expression on everybody’s faces.

Everybody except grown-up Lenny, who just looks smug. It’s a good look on him. Holy crap, maybe their grown-up selves are already together in the future? That would be _awesome_. Way to take the pressure off starting a relationship, knowing that you’re still going strong some mumble-forever years later. He wonders if Sara’s involved and, if so, when it started. 

“Your Plan B, reporting for duty,” he says to Lenny. “Tell me you’ve figured out how to open these cell thingys?”

His older self grunts and shakes his head. Mick has done that expression a million times, it’s called trying to hide a smile while still looking tough. No sweat, Lenny has that effect on him too. “I know how to open them,” future him says. “How the hell’d you even get him here, Snart?”

“I borrowed your back up plan,” Lenny drawls. “Now tell the kid how to open the gates so we can get out of here – I assume you still have the ship?”

“Roger? Sure, it’s parked out back.” 

Older him looks vaguely horrified. “You named my ship _Roger_?” he says like he can’t believe they’re the same person.

Mick rolls his eyes. “We’re unauthorized users of timeships, according to Gideon,” he says. “Which means –”

“Oh, god, you called it the Jolly Roger, didn’t you?” older Sara bursts out, grinning like a maniac. “That’s adorable, Mick; I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Older Mick grunts again and waves Mick over, walking him through the release mechanism on his cell. Mick gets him out and then goes to replicate the process on Sara’s cell – he would’ve gone to Lenny’s first, but older Mick made a freaking beeline there. One more point in favor of the already together theory, excellent.

“So where’s my younger self?” Sara asks when he lets her out. “Watching the ship.”

“Nah, she and Lenny – uh, younger Lenny? Lenny Junior? – are covering our tails.”

“I trust you’re not referring to the _infant_ Mr. Snart,” the old guy says, looking _deeply_ horrified.

Mick rolls his eyes. “Of _course_ not,” he says with distaste. What is it with adults and thinking people his age are thick as rocks? “I picked up Lenny from my era. Well, a few years later, anyway.”

“Wait, if you’re here, and your older selves are here,” some guy with a stupid haircut says. “Then are they remembering rescuing themselves right now? How come they haven’t disappeared like what happened when the Pilgrim went after us?”

“There is an immense difference between being killed in the past and changing the past, Mr. Palmer,” a guy in a leather jacket says, like he’s teaching some sort of lesson. “Mr. Rory and Ms. Lance – and apparently Mr. Snart as well – are timeline fragments from the original timeline that brought them here. If the timeline isn’t repaired, perhaps with the judicious use of amnesia pills, they will disappear forever once the timeline reaches a stable point.”

“Wait, then what’s the point of all this?” Mick says, a little pissed. “I’m not taking any amnesia pills.”

“Then you are dooming your future self to oblivion,” the guy says.

Mick glances at his future self. “Can we leave him here?” he asks. “He sounds like an asshole.”

“Tempting,” Lenny drawls. “But no.”

Older him chuckles, though, clearly amused by the though. He reaches out and pats Mick on the shoulder.

The annoying guy’s eyes widen. “Mr. Rory! You should _not_ interact with your younger self! The risk of paradox –”

“You’re right, kid,” older Mick says, ignoring the annoying guy. “He really does talk too much. And I’ve spend three decades with _him_.” He points to Lenny.

Mick beams like the stupid besotted idiot that he is. Future relationship, _totally_ confirmed! “Sounds good to me,” he says. “Specially with Sara and all that.”

“Wait, hold on now,” older Sara says, looking up from where she’s releasing the angry girl who seems to have grown wings. “What’s this about me?”

“I’m pretty sure we’re dating,” he tells her.

She gapes at him.

“Wait, _you and me_?” she says, sounding scandalized. So the Sara thing’s new, got it. 

“I thought you said you had better taste than that at that age,” older Mick says, smirking. “What was it, you knew how to handle guys like me?”

Well, if _that’s_ how future him is going about it, no wonder they haven’t gotten their act together yet. 

“No offense,” Sara says. “But you’re really not my type. Even at that age, and that was before I realized I was into girls!”

Mick’s eyes go wide. “You’re into girls, too?” he says, impressed and already trying to think about how to convince Sara that he and Lenny would totally support her if she wanted to explore this particular part of her life, especially if she’d let them watch.

Sara scowls at him. “I know what you’re thinking,” she says warningly. 

He holds up his hand in surrender. Older him is laughing.

“Maybe we should focus on getting _out_ of here?” Lenny drawls. He doesn’t look happy. Actually, come to think of it, he has the same sort of scrunched up expression _his_ Lenny got every time he saw Mick and Sara cuddling.

_Oh._

Jesus, he's a dumbass.

“Don’t worry,” Mick tells older Lenny. “We’re dating you, too.”

“For gods’ sake, I leave you alone with my younger self for like a _day_ and you’ve enticed me into a polyamorous threesome?” Sara explodes. “What the _hell_?”

Lenny’s smirking now instead of scowling and older Mick's roaring with laughter. “And now that everyone – sadly including Rip – is out, let’s get out of here,” he suggests. “Preferably before the Time Masters or Savage notice we’ve done a runner. Also, before the big bang.”

“What big bang?” Haircut says. 

“The one my younger self and the younger version of Sara are no doubt planting right now,” Lenny says. “I get the core, she gets the circuit, am I right?”

“Dead on,” Mick says, impressed. “How…?”

“It’s what I would’ve done,” Lenny says. He pulls open a closet and plucks out a hefty looking gun which he smiles at the way Mick smiled at the copy of the heat gun he’d found on the ship. He’s going to _have_ to get a copy of that for his Lenny. “Now let’s go.”

“When you say big bang,” the annoying guy says, “you mean that metaphorically, I trust?”

“Maybe we’d better run,” Mick suggests.

They run. 

There’s a lot of them, which is helpful when the Time Master guards try to stop them. Mick’s future self is apparently pretty badass. Hell, most of the crew is pretty badass – he wouldn’t have called old guy being scary – and they manage to make it to where the Jolly Roger is parked. 

Lenny’s waiting for them with an expression on his face that Mick can read in a second as “it’s going to be big”. Judging from the huff of laughter his older self gives, he can read it too.

“Is this everyone?” Lenny asks, surveying the whole crowd, eyes stopping appreciatively on Mick’s older self for an extra second. 

“Yes, yes, this is everyone,” annoying guy says. “Now, I suspect we should be on our way, should we not? Preferably before the Time Masters themselves notice our untimely absence.”

Lenny flips the guy off. “You’re not the captain on this ship, moron,” he says. 

The guy looks offended. “I am the only person –”

“We gotta wait for Sara anyway,” Lenny says shortly. “Now get on board and, uh, avoid the brig, it’s rigged. Just don’t touch anything, actually.”

They start shuffling slowly onto the ship and then Sara comes barreling down the hallway, eyes wide and hair flying everywhere. “Fire in the hole!” she yells. “Fire in the fucking hole!”

Everyone throws themselves on the ship and they manage to disembark just in time for the force of the explosion to hit them and throw them free.

\-----------------------------------

“So where exactly are we again?” younger Lenny says skeptically. 

Annoying guy – “Captain Rip Hunter” apparently – has explained it three times now, and it hasn’t made any more sense than the first time.

“We're stuck in a whirlpool,” older Mick finally says. “You know how the vortex sometimes looks all swirly? We’re in one of the dangerous swirly bits, called an ouroboros vortex; that’s why we’re stuck until the timeline hits a solid patch.”

Hunter looks outraged at Mick’s simplification, but everyone else on board just goes, “Oooooooh” with understanding.

“None of you understand the important nuances and subtleties of time travel,” Hunter sniffs, as if that’s a bad thing.

“You know, you remind me of someone,” Mick says, studying him. “Back at the…Sara, doesn’t he remind you of whatshisname, the cockroach?”

“Michael, you mean?” Sara says. “Yeah, he does a bit, now that you mention it.”

That gets a number of the adults laughing. “Got it on the nose,” older Lenny drawls, smirking. “That _was_ our Rip’s younger self.”

“He was _awful_ ,” Mick tells him. 

“ _Regardless_ of your opinions of my younger self,” Hunter says, sounding incredibly testy. “We must discuss more important matters. As Mr. Rory – ah, the _elder_ Mr. Rory – correctly pointed out, we should be able to get out when the timeline stabilizes. This could take days, or even weeks, and this ship is _significantly_ smaller than the Waverider, rendering that thought…unpalatable. I propose that we help the timeline along.”

“How do we do that?” Haircut asks. Mick thinks he heard a name at one point, but he also didn’t care.

“As long as we have two versions of three of our crew members, the timeline by necessity remains in flux,” Hunter lectures. Mick’s eyes narrow, and he’s not the only one. He has a feeling he knows where this is going. “If they are not returned to their timeline in such a way as will leave the current course of the timeline intact, Mr. Rory, Mr. Snart, and Miss Lance – as well as the elder Miss Snart – will all be wiped out of existence or irrevocably changed to such a degree that we will not recognize them. Being in the time stream would render us partially immune, but their changes in the past could irrevocably alter any number of facets about the world you are familiar with or indeed with our interactions with each other. As a result, it seems eminently practical to–”

“We’re not taking any stinking amnesia pills,” Mick cuts in. He’s not fucking up the best relationship of his life by forgetting about it _before he even gets to have it_. 

Hunter gives him that condescending look adults always give teenagers. “I’m afraid you don’t understand the consequences of your actions, Mr. Rory –” he starts, and Mick’s teeth are already grinding in rage. Hunter’s not going to listen to them; he’d probably dose them when they aren’t looking and say it was for the greater good or some such rot.

“We’re not sending them back,” Lenny – older Lenny – says.

Hunter looks taken aback. Older Sara crosses her arms. “Oh yeah?” she says challengingly. “Why’s that?”

Older Lenny straights up a little from where he was leaning against the wall. That’s how they know he means business. “You can send your little doppleganger home if you like, Sara,” he says sharply. “But if there’s any other option, I’m not sending my sister back to where we grew up.”

“You can’t possibly intend for her to be raised _here_ ,” Hunter objects. “Even putting aside the timeline effects, it would be outrageous; there’s no school, no structure…”

“Lisa’ll be fine,” Lenny says, sneering. “ _Here_. Can’t say the same about back home.” Young Lenny, who's watching, nods, silently concurring. 

“Mr. Snart, if you don’t send yourself back soon, you may be erased from the timeline forever, do you realize that?”

“Yeah, Rip, I realize,” Lenny says. “I’m saying I’m okay with that.”

Judging by the expression on Hunter’s face, he never considered the idea that someone would actually be willing to sacrifice themselves like that. Or maybe just that Lenny wouldn’t, which is stupid. 

“You might not have to make that choice,” Mick’s older self abruptly says. “The timeline’s clearing up.”

“ _What?_ That’s impossible!”

“Gideon, can we get out of here?” older Mick asks. 

“Within approximately ten minutes, the timeline will be stable enough to exit the ouroboros vortex and re-enter the time stream,” Gideon reported. “The timeline has undergone a major restorative shift.”

“A major restorative shift?” Haircut says. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“Indeed not, Mr. Palmer,” old guy adds. “If Mr. Hunter is correct, our friends should be fading away as we speak, yet it is self-evident that this is not what is happening.”

“That’s correct, Professor,” Gideon says cheerily. “The combination of the temporal radiation from the explosion of the core of the Vanishing Point, the presence of multiple incarnations of the same individuals, and our rapid re-entry into the ouroboros vortex has enabled us to escape the timeline reaction triggered by the Vanishing Point’s fail safe measures.” 

“Could you repeat that, but maybe in English this time, Gideon?” the other woman – Kendra – said, smiling a little awkwardly. 

“The timeline has been restored to the point prior to your rescue of your younger selves,” Gideon announces. “You never removed them from the timelines, so your future selves will remain intact, and any attempt to disrupt their past timelines would potentially have dire consequences if attempted any time within the next decade.”

“Wait,” older Lenny says. “But then why are the kids still here?”

“The timeline reset was extremely violent,” Gideon says apologetically. “Their timeline has been reabsorbed into the multiverse – by which means that there is a universe in which they, not you, are the dominant remainders, but that universe is a separate one from this one. The younger incarnations of Mr. Rory, Mr. and Miss Snart, and Miss Lance are now crystalized timeline fragments.”

“What does that mean?” Sara asks, looking worried. “We at risk of disappearing or something?”

“On the contrary, Miss Lance,” Gideon chirps. “Your incarnations are possible the most stable: it is your past that was erased, yet you remain intact. Any interference in the pasts of your selves would affect your elder selves, not you. Multiverse transit would be required in order to interfere with your pasts.”

“So you’re saying we don’t exist in this universe anymore, but _they_ do?” Lenny says. “Even though they are us?”

“According to the timeline, you are no longer the same individuals, Mr. Snart; you merely have the same history up to a certain point. Your timelines are now sufficiently different that you no longer have a reciprocal effect on each other.”

“Timeline’s cleared,” older Mick, who’d been staring out the window, called. “Gideon, get us out of here.”

“Certainly, Mr. Rory.” 

The ship jerks violently, not unlike yanking something that’s gotten stuck in a tight spot out, and suddenly they’re gliding through the vortex again. 

“Mr. Rory, we are being hailed,” Gideon announces.

“Hailed?” Hunter exclaims. “Already?” 

“Four days have passed in the time stream while we were within the ouroboros vortex,” Gideon says. “It appears Captain Baxter has been waiting.”

“Captain Baxter?” Lenny says. “That’s not so bad; she gave us some pretty useful intel. Gideon, answer the hail.”

“Mr. Snart, I don’t think you should be making these decisions without consulting –” Hunter starts, but everyone – including Gideon – ignore him, since it’s not his ship.

Baxter appears on screen. “Greetings,” she says, then immediately drops the Time Master crap and asks, “Is Lisa okay?”

Both Lennys immediately smile. It’s hilarious. 

The younger Lenny leans over to the screen. “She’s good,” he says. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

Baxter shrugs. “You guys seemed pretty set on your mission,” she says. “And there were a couple of things I wanted back from the Vanishing Point that I knew I’d be able to grab in the confusion after it reset itself. I snuck in and grabbed a handful of things – including something I think might be of use to you.”

She waves her hand and the screen expands. Her ship – much, _much_ larger than theirs – is towing yet another ship behind it.

“The Waverider!” Hunter exclaims, pushing his way forward.

“It’s good to see you again, Captain Hunter,” Baxter says with a crooked smile. Mick wonders momentarily if she’s lost her mind. “I saw this there and thought you might be needing it.”

“Much appreciated, Captain Baxter,” Hunter says, looking pleased.

She signs off and he turns to the other adults. “This means we can continue our fight against Savage – and, unfortunately, against my former employers. However, instead of us hunting _them_ , they will now be trying to track _us_ down, which gives us the advantage of being able to choose the site of the next battlefield. The best place to do that would be from a position of strength: I propose we return to 2016, where we began. We can collect Mr. Jackson and recruit some of our allies in that time period for a final battle.”

“What about the kids?” Haircut says.

“We’re not really as invested as you are in fighting this Savage person, honestly,” Lenny drawls. “Sorry.”

“No, but aren’t you disconnected from the timeline?” Kendra asked, frowning. “I mean, if I understand correctly, there are other versions of you – young you – in the past, as if you and everything that’s happened to you since we picked you up never existed.”

Mick shrugs. “Not like there’s much waiting for me back there,” he points out. “Lenny’s a few years older than when I knew him, but that doesn’t change all that much, and he’s got Lisa, which is all _he_ cares about.” He frowns, turns to Sara. He’d prefer not to lose her, either. “Canary-bird…?”

Older Sara makes an odd noise at the endearment.

Sara wraps her arms around herself and smiles weakly. “Actually,” she says, “after we rescued our older selves – and, uh, after seeing how older me fights – I decided to do a bit of research with Gideon. I know we said we wouldn’t do it so as not to disrupt the timeline, but I was kind of curious to know what sort of training I’d gotten to be able to do _that_ and why I gotten it, you know.”

Older Sara looks stricken. 

“Yeah,” Sara says, seeing it and making a face. “Apparently I’m like, what, a year or two away from _cheating on my sister with her boyfriend_ and then getting lost at sea for five plus years, thereby destroying my family from the inside, driving my dad to drink more and my mom to divorce him and god knows what to happen to Laurel.” She glared at her older self. “Good decision making there.”

Older Sara makes a face. “Honestly,” she replies, “you might have a point there. It’s really all just a terrible round of near death, kidnapping, coercion, more near death, and then the League of Assassins from that point on. Which, I mean, the training I got there helped _me_ a lot, but if I had the chance to avoid it entirely…” She trails off and sighs. “I don’t know what I’d pick.”

“Well, it’s not like I can go and sign up to the League of Assassins again,” Sara says logically. “They don’t really have the sort of exit opportunities I look for in an sports club, if you get my meaning.”

Older Sara rolls her eyes, then gives a little bittersweet smile. “You’ll miss out Nyssa,” she says regretfully. “Which is one of the highlights. But I made the decision that Nyssa wasn’t enough to make me stay in the League long ago. You don’t _have_ to make the decisions I did, and honestly, that’s...not so bad.”

Sara nods, smiling the same little smile. They look so similar that Mick is abruptly reminded that unlike his own future selves, it appears there’s less than ten years difference between the two Saras. “When Hunter first said I was no longer part of the timeline, I thought about my – our – parents, Laurel, my friends. But if I end up losing them anyway, then I’d rather be here, with Mick and Lenny and Lisa, than on some sort of merry-go-round of misery.”

Older Sara laughs a little. “C’mon, kid,” she says, patting Sara on the shoulder. “Let’s go to the armory; I’ll give you some tips before we have to go.”

Mick sidles over to his older self, who’s lingering by the window. His older self glances down at him and arches an eyebrow. It’s weird seeing a face so like his own do that. “Hey, kid,” he says.

Mick looks up at him. He’s not entirely sure what he’s going to say, but he ends up just blurting out, “I don’t know if I can be better than you, but I’m going to try.”

As soon as he says it, he groans and puts his hand to cover his eyes. That came out so much more insultingly than he’d meant it. He’d _meant_ to thank his older self for his words back at the orphanage. 

He pulls his hand away when his older self starts chuckling. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I got your meaning. One advantage of talking to yourself, I guess.”

“No kidding,” Mick says gratefully. “I just meant…” He waved a hand. “You know. Thanks.”

“So how’d you manage to shack up with both Snart _and_ Lance?” older Mick asks. “I don’t remember having that type of game when I was your age.”

Mick holds out his hands in a “don’t look at me” gesture. “I’m pretty sure they did all the work,” he confesses. “Just laid one on me, one right after the other.”

His older self contemplates this for a second. “Yeah,” he says. “That seems like a thing that could happen.”

“I’m glad you and Lenny are still together,” Mick says impulsively. “I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who was happy together after thirty years, but I saw you fighting earlier.” He smiles happily at the memory. “Perfectly in sync. That’s something special right there, you know?”

His older self looks surprised by his words, then smirks a little. “Yeah, kid,” he says, glancing to where the two Lennys are chatting while the older Lenny shows his younger self the best way to braid Lisa’s hair because clearly _that’s_ what’s important information to convey. “Something special.”

“Also,” Mick adds. “The heat gun is _awesome_.”

Older Mick barks out a laugh, and it sounds genuine. “No kidding, kid,” he says, grinning. “It was a gift from Lenny, you know?”

“I am going to hold that over his head at every anniversary and holiday from now to the end of time,” Mick tells his older self sincerely. “And he’s _never_ going to be able to live up to it.”

“You do that,” older Mick says with a smirk. “Come look us up sometime after 2016, kid. Not like this is goodbye for good, after all; you got a time ship, we got a time ship. We can swap stories.”

Mick beams. That sounds like a lot of fun. “Sure thing,” he says. 

“Especially if you have trouble with the fire thing,” older Mick adds. “I used to rely entirely on Lenny for that, and it was hard on him, seeing us burn. I got a few more tricks in my pocket that I can give you.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Hunter yells from the doorway. “I really do think it is time we should be going. If we are going to get the advantage on Savage, we need all the time we can get.”

Mick snickers. “Don’t get killed fighting this Savage guy,” he tells his older self. “I want those tricks of yours.”

“What’re you planning on doing?” his older self asks.

Mick gives him a look. “I’m dating Canary-bird and _Lenny_ ,” he says in his best deadpan. “Why do you think _I’m_ making any of the calls?”

His older self laughed.

“But seriously,” Mick continued. “This whole time pirate thing seems like a decent gig, though I suspect Len’s gonna want to find a nice era to settle down in for a while to make sure Lisa gets some schooling in.”

“Early nineties had good kids television,” his older self offered. “Decent movies.”

Mick nods, noting that down as a suggestion. “After that,” he says with a shrug. “I don’t know. Travel time; steal some cool stuff. Guess we’ll go fuck up the Time Masters some more if they get in our way. Maybe see if we can blow up that stupid refuge place.”

Older Mick smirks. “Don’t let Hunter hear you say that,” he advises. “But sure, kid, you do that. Oh, and get Lisa those _Carmen Sandiego_ games; they come up with a time jumping one in 1989 that she’ll get a kick out of.”

“Hey, I think I’ve seen that,” Mick says, pleased. “ _Where in the World_ , right?”

“That’s the one. Got a whole series.”

Mick draws back towards Lenny and Sara and Lisa as the adults file out into the Waverider. “We’ll see them again,” he says confidently to them and they nod. 

It’s still a bit tough seeing them go.

After both the Acheron and the Waverider have blipped out into the time stream, Mick looks at the rest of them. “So, I guess we live here now,” he says. He feels warm like he hasn’t since that first fire took his family. “Where should we go first?”

Lisa cleared her throat self-importantly.

They all look at her.

She beams.

“Disneyland!”

They all look at each other, each and every one of them biting their lips to try to keep from laughing. “Sure, Lisa,” Lenny finally manages to choke out. “Why not?”

Mick goes over and loops an arm around Lenny’s shoulder and Sara’s waist. “Why not,” he says with a grin. “We can go _anywhere you want_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Mick's backstory is my best attempt to explain why he's already so old at the time of the fire. The timing in regards to Sara is actually much worse than I make it out to be - according to Arrow timeline, as best I figure, she is very imminently about to go on the yacht with Oliver, not in a year or two. Also, I wish there was more grown-up Jax, but the episode timing doesn't work. 
> 
> (and yes, Mick is actually totally a closet geek, but shh, he's in denial)


End file.
